1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of ammunition. More specifically, it relates to ammunition projectiles for use in hand held weapons such as riot guns.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As is known to those skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains, originally riot gun ammunition, typically involved a time consuming and expensive procedure not only for developing, manufacturing and inventorying, but for loading and unloading a firearm because of the specific uses of the ammunition. To alleviate this problem ammunition has been developed for such riot guns and riot control. Most commonly, this ammunition has been in the well-recognized form of "baton-type" shells which usually contain certain types of scatterable material from wood to plastic. However, accuracy has suffered with the use of scatterable ammunition and large numbers of people have been injured when this was not necessary.
The improvement of riot guns to provide for accuracy, ease of loading and automatic ejection of the spent shells, has lessened the need to use only "scatter gun" ammunition. Thus, more accurate riot gun ammunition has been developed.
However, such ammunition is traditionally designed for a single use, i.e., barricade penetration, tear gas dispersion or utilization of the projectiles against specific targets. However, no one common projectile body is useful for such uses. For example, The Royal Ordinance PLC of England has developed a riot gun cartridge or ammunition which is more accurate than the scatterable shells. While this cartridge provides additional accuracy, each specific type or nature is a single type of application or use requires specific.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide riot gun ammunition that has the desired accuracy and which employs a projectile which is usable for different types of applications, i.e. barricade penetrator, a tear gas head, solid head, etc. thus, improving upon manufacturing techniques and reducing costs. As subsequently detailed it is to this to which the present invention is directed.